Dr David Fowler, testifying for the defense, also said vehicle exhaust may have played a part in Floyd’s death
A leading forensic pathologist has told the Derek Chauvin trial that George Floyd was killed by his heart condition and drug use.
Dr David Fowler, testifying for the defence, also introduced the idea that vehicle exhaust may have played a part in Floyd’s death by raising the amount of carbon monoxide in his blood and affecting his heart.
Continue reading...Bernard Madoff, the one-time Wall Street titan who orchestrated one of the largest frauds in history, has died in prison aged 82.
Madoff, known as Bernie, was a former chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange, and was regarded for years as an investment sage. But unbeknown to his thousands of victims, he was running a Ponzi scheme that wiped out at least $17.5bn in savings.
Continue reading...Former film producer, who is currently incarcerated in New York, faces possible extradition for alleged attacks on five women
Harvey Weinstein has been indicted in California on sexual assault charges, one of his lawyers said on Monday, as the former film producer appeared in a New York court proceeding over whether to extradite him.
The 69-year-old Weinstein appeared by video from the Wende correctional facility, near Buffalo, before a judge on the Erie county court.
Continue reading...Brooklyn Center police chief describes fatal shooting of Black man, 20, as result of ‘accidental discharge’ from handgun
Police in a Minneapolis suburb said an officer accidentally shot and killed a 20-year-old Black man on Sunday afternoon during a traffic stop, releasing graphic body-camera footage they say shows the officer intended to use a Taser not a handgun during the death of unarmed Daunte Wright.
Related: ‘They didn’t have to kill him’: anger and outrage as locals mourn Daunte Wright
Continue reading...Prosecutors in the case of Ghislaine Maxwell have defended a late expansion of charges against her, saying it became necessary because a woman spoke after the Briton’s arrest about abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein in the early 2000s.
Related: Ghislaine Maxwell faces new charges, including sex trafficking of a minor
Continue reading...In his first gun control measures since taking office, Joe Biden announced a half-dozen executive actions aimed at addressing the proliferation of gun violence across the nation that he called an ‘epidemic and an international embarrassment’. Greeting the families of gun violence victims and activists in the Rose Garden, Biden thanked them for their presence and continued action. And he assured them: ‘We’re absolutely determined to make change.’ But the announcement underscores the limitations of Biden’s executive power to act on guns, facing as he is an evenly divided Senate, where Republicans remain near-unified against most proposals
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Shortly after Tobin has taken the stand, he gives his opinion on Floyd’s cause-of-death: “Mr Floyd died from a low-level of oxygen and this caused damage to his brain...and it also caused a [pulseless electrical activity] arrhythmia that caused his heart to stop.”
“The cause of the low-level of oxygen was shallow breathing, small breaths...shallow breaths that weren’t able to carry the air through his lungs down to the essential areas [in] his lungs,” Tobin says in response to further questions, noting shortly thereafter: “There are a number of forces that led to the size of his breath became so small.”
The Chauvin trial testimony has resumed.
Prosecutors have called their first witness of the day: Dr Martin Tobin, an expert in critical care and pulmonology.
Continue reading...A small but determined group rise early to take their spot outside the Minneapolis courthouse – and they stay all day
Behind the Hennepin county courthouse in downtown Minneapolis, which is heavily fortified for the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, a small but determined core of seven protesters gathers every day.
Sometimes there are many more protesters, sometimes not so many. But always this group, there hoping to witness justice for George Floyd, who died under the knee of Chauvin in south Minneapolis last May.
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The court is just coming back from a short break, but here is a stark detail from the court room.
Coronavirus risks have imposed heavy restrictions on court. Only two media “pool” reporters are allowed into the court room itself. And defendant Derek Chauvin and the family of the late George Floyd were each allocated just one seat to use in the court room.
Here is the most important clip of the day so far. After so much harrowing video footage and lingering stills of then-officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck in the first day or two of last week, the jury and public has been spared.
But the prosecution decided it needed to show one of the defining images of the whole Floyd disaster, that picture of Chauvin, hand in pocket, sunglasses on his head, looking directly into a bystander’s phone camera, while Floyd is pinned under him.
Incredibly damning testimony from the Minneapolis police chief:
Derek Chauvin's actions were "not part of policy, not part of our training, and certainly not part of our ethics or values." pic.twitter.com/gS0RpTGGP0
Courteney Ross’s testimony showed how police departments fail in their duty to protect those who battle addiction
Of all the accounts of George Floyd’s life and death heard in a Minneapolis courtroom this week, perhaps the least expected was his girlfriend’s description of their shared struggle with opioid addiction.
Courteney Ross’s wrenching testimony gave a very human glimpse into the remorseless search for a fix and a mutual fight to shake off drug dependency.
Continue reading...Nancy Pelosi calls officer who died ‘a martyr for democracy’ as attack on Friday afternoon stirs memories of Capitol insurrection
Washington woke on Saturday shaken by another deadly attack at the US Capitol, an incident which left a police officer and a suspect dead and stirred memories of 6 January, when supporters of Donald Trump stormed the building in an attempt to overturn the election.
Related: US Capitol: one officer and suspect dead after car rams into barrier
Continue reading...Richard Zimmerman gives testimony and tells court ‘if your knee is on someone’s neck – that could kill them’
A Minneapolis homicide detective has described Derek Chauvin’s decision to press his knee into George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as a totally unnecessary use of “deadly force”.
Related: Video of George Floyd's killing retraumatizes many as trial unfolds
Continue reading...Christopher Martin tells court ‘this could have been avoided’, on third day of testimony in former officer Derek Chauvin’s trial
The cashier who served George Floyd in a Minneapolis store immediately before his arrest and death last May told a court on Wednesday of the “disbelief and guilt” he felt for allowing Floyd to pay with a suspected fake $20 bill when he later saw the police kneeling on him.
Testimony on the third day of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial continued in an atmosphere of tense emotions and harrowing evidence about Floyd’s death.
Continue reading...Police say Brandon Elliot, who was previously convicted of killing his mother, faces assault charges for attacking 65-year-old woman
The suspect wanted in an attack of an Asian American woman near New York City’s Times Square has been arrested and charged with felony assault as a hate crime, police said early Wednesday.
The arrest comes after the man was seen on video kicking and stomping the woman on Monday.
Continue reading...Analysis: the trial over the killing of George Floyd may be a bellwether for racial justice, but the prosecution will focus on one man’s actions
For all the many thousands of protests around the world, the global reckoning on racism and policing prompted by the killing of George Floyd last May, prosecutors were clear that their case in the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin would be centered around a period of time lasting less than 10 minutes.
Nine minutes and 29 seconds. The total time that Chauvin held his knee to George Floyd’s neck, leaving him “pancaked”, in the words of prosecutor Jerry Blackwell, between the ground and Chauvin’s body, gradually asphyxiating him to death.
Continue reading...Boulder police released the names of the 10 people shot and killed at a Colorado grocery store on Monday and said the victims were between 20 and 65.
Related: US gun-safety groups call for urgent action after Colorado shooting
Continue reading...Eric Talley, a father of seven, was first officer to respond to reports of shots fired. Other victims ranged in age from 20 to 65 years old
A police officer whose father said he was looking for a less dangerous line of work was among 10 victims of a shooting at a crowded Colorado supermarket on Monday night.
Related: Boulder shooting: suspect and 10 victims named by police
Continue reading...A hate crimes law passed in Georgia amid outrage over the killing of Ahmaud Arbery could get its first major test as part of the murder case against a white man charged with shooting and killing six women of Asian descent at Atlanta-area massage businesses this week.
Related: 'It's time for people to hear us': Georgia's Asian Americans vow to stand up against hate
Continue reading...Four men described as leaders of the far-right Proud Boys group have been charged in the US Capitol riot, as an indictment ordered unsealed on Friday presents fresh evidence of how federal officials believe members planned and carried out a coordinated attack to stop Congress certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Related: The decline of Proud Boys: what does the future hold for far-right group?
Continue reading...The suspect behind shooting attacks that killed eight people in Atlanta was charged with eight counts of murder on Wednesday, with officials saying he may have planned further attacks.
Police and city leaders also indicated they believe Robert Aaron Long, 21, who did not resist arrest when he was apprehended, was on his way to Florida after Tuesday evening’s attack, where they suspect he may have planned to “carry out additional shootings”.
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